About these writings
May 5, 2011 – Portland, Oregon
Why the change? What was wrong, or wasn’t right, about Gerry’s Daily Ride? Evolution I suppose. It just seemed time to move on, forward actually, with how I connect to cycling, specifically my passion for Le Tour de France–its history, its culture, its legends, its joie de vivre, its je ne se qua.
That became evident yesterday when working on research and setting up rider interviews for two new books I’m writing - Le Domestiques: The Dog Soldiers of July and Chasing the Lanterne Rouge; I opened up a new post on Gerry’s Daily Ride and wrote, Ride vs Write. It was clear I wanted something more from the bike, from my connection to cycling.
The writings here will often times be excerpts from the work I am doing on the two books. Parts of interviews with riders present and past that don’t have a home in those future pages. More often than not posts here will be my need to clear the cerebellum to prevent thinker’s-block and stave off writer’s-block.
Like Gerry’s Daily Ride, Le Velo, Le Tour is a journey for me. The previous blog was an outlet for my thoughts as I tried to get more deeply into riding my bike, being part of the bike community in Portland and eventually racing locally. This blog is a similar start line for cycling journalism. Here too I am chasing giants–most notable Samuel Abt, David Walsh, Dan Coyle, Robin Magowan and most recently Guy Wilson-Roberts, whose blog writings–Le Grimpeur–I admire greatly. In fact, in a recent post he quoted from an interview for the Paris Review on the art of fiction, with Ernest Hemingway:
“Trying to write something of permanent value is a full-time job even though only a few hours a day are spent on the actual writing. A writer can be compared to a well. There are as many kinds of wells as there are writers. The important thing is to have good water in the well, and it is better to take a regular amount out than to pump the well dry and wait for it to refill.”
That quote adhered. The initial line might explain much of the change, “Trying to write something of permanent value is a full-time job even though only a few hours a day are spent on the actual writing.” I’m chasing legends, I hope to be a good domestique, right now I’m just a neo-pro. I need to focus those few precious hours on something that will hopefully have permanent value. With my obligations to other writings and photography those few hours are essential.
I’ll be leaving Gerry’s Daily Ride up because there are a few ramblings there, and photos, worth reading and seeing, but this is the new residence of my writing on cycling, especially the cyclists, culture and history of Le Tour de France.
